You Can Tweet Your Way Into A Job. Or Out Of One

One person who might claim to have tweeted himself into a job is US President Donald Trump. Now famous for (among other things) his distrust of almost any form of organized media, Trump counts on social media to tell his version of life directly to supporters.

Socialbakers, a global social media analytics company, last month estimated Trump’s SM following at over 60 million – after discounting 27 million “fake followers”, or bots. Big numbers.

If it works for POTUS, can it work for you?

A survey in the UK not long ago suggested that it might. One third of employers surveyed say they found content that made them more likely to hire the candidate. But there is a catch. An even bigger number scratched the candidate after doing a social media check.

So, if you are counting on your profile to generate interest, be very, very careful that profile is squeaky clean. You could be tweeting yourself out of a job, rather than into one.

Scouring SM for qualified candidates has become a de facto process and the leader by a clear margin is LinkedIn.

But today’s social media searchers are not attracted by LinkedIn’s extremely powerful database segmentation and global search flexibility. In fact, they may not be looking for more candidates at all. They have a candidate. They are now checking up on what he or she has made public on the web in a bid to assess behavioral characteristics.

The same UK survey reveals that almost half of recruiters queried (48%) use social media sites to dig out information on potential job candidates. Of those who don’t, 12% plan to.

Why?

Because of another statistic: 55% of employers who research applicants on the web say they have seen something that makes them not want to hire the candidate.

These people are not just trolling social media sites, they are using Google and other search engines to check what expressions or actions are attributed to the candidate. And, as we are learning from one internet-related issue after another, it’s all there: once you have been associated with an issue or opinion, it is almost impossible to eradicate it, true or false.

Key problem flags are reference to drinking or drug habits, disparaging remarks concerning previous employers and inappropriate photos.

The fact that so many recruiters are interested in what you tweet might encourage job seekers to double check their privacy settings as well as pay attention to who they allow to post to their profile.